


waterproof

by seventhswan



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Disabled Character, Ensemble Cast, F/F, Families of Choice, Female POV, Gen, Mostly Gen, Non-Binary Frisk, Sans is everyone's big brother, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-27
Updated: 2015-10-27
Packaged: 2018-04-28 13:12:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5092019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seventhswan/pseuds/seventhswan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p></p><blockquote>
  <p>Undyne sent her dad postcards all the way through her training for the Guard. <i>Here’s a photo of me creaming some guy, here’s a photo of me with the King, please find attached to this postcard a vial of my opponents’ tears</i>, that kind of thing.</p>
</blockquote><p>Undyne becomes a knight, burns her house down, learns about families, gets a Valentine’s card, goes on a terrible date, and finally finds her place.</p>
            </blockquote>





	waterproof

**Author's Note:**

> Disabled character tag refers to Frisk. Chronologically this takes place before, during and after a true pacifist run. Apologies for any mistakes with canon details!
> 
>  **Mild warning** for internalized misogyny in the beginning, and sort-of homophobia mention towards the end, but really nothing bad happens in this story. However, if anything else needs a warning, just let me know.
> 
> This was honestly meant to be 500 words about Undyne. I have no idea what happened.

**i. before**

When she was little Undyne wanted to be a knight, or failing that, a king.

“Girls can’t be kings, sweetheart,” her mother said. When Undyne said _okay, but what about knights?_ , her mother only pressed her lips together the way she did when she found a topic extremely Distasteful, and Undyne knew they wouldn’t be talking about it again.

For her next birthday her father made her a dummy out in a secret hidden place in the back of the yard, and gave her a box of shiny knives to throw at it.

**ii.**

After four years of training with the dummy and the knives (and later the jousting lance, which was considerably harder to hide from her mother), Undyne decided she was ready. She walked straight out of the house one night after dinner, and went all the way to where the king lived. 

She’d had a bad day at school, she remembers. It’s been years, but she remembers that – someone had said something snide about the friends she didn’t have, or how she was taller than all the other girls, or about the size of her gills.

She wasn’t even scared when she saw Asgore. She just wanted him to hit her. She really wanted him to hit her.

It’s a feeling she gets less now that she’s older – that desire to throw herself into a fight she knows she can’t win. It’s just that nobody judges what you do in a fight you can’t win. You can go all out, give it and take it. Everything goes. It’s freeing, somehow.

Alphys has made up her own version of what happened the day Undyne was earmarked for the Royal Guard. It’s rather… florid. Undyne is like, ninety-nine percent sure she’s not supposed to have seen it, but Alphys has a weird habit of accidentally leaving very personally incriminating things stuck to her fridge door. Well, Undyne isn’t personally in the business of making fun of what people do in their leisure time, so whatever.

_“Please hit me,” Undyne whispered eventually, when Asgore did not take up his weapon. Instead he simply looked at her over the flowers he held in his strong arms, and smiled at her. It was a strange smile, sad and kind all at once._

_”Oh, my child,” he said finally, ”what’s the matter? Who hurt you, dear one?”_

_And Undyne’s lower lip trembled tremulously, and when she opened her mouth to speak, she was Overcome with emotion, and nothing came out._

_“Little flower,” Asgore said, “please come inside with me and ~~sit by the roaring fire~~ ~~oh wait that doesn’t work~~ sit by the very gentle and weak fire with a soothing cold wet cloth for your brow  (better) and tell my wife and me what troubles you. We have cake.”_

_And tiny baby Undyne (uwaa~!) took Asgore’s hand and walked with him right through the flower garden and into the house, brushing her tears away with her knuckles, which Asgore chivalrously did not mention._

Of course, that’s not what happened at all. HA HA, YEAH RIGHT. Undyne hit him, or tried to, anyway. And then Asgore said she could train for the Royal Guard. That was what happened.

She sent her dad postcards all the way through training. _Here’s a photo of me creaming some guy, here’s a photo of me with the King, please find attached to this postcard a vial of my opponents’ tears_ , that kind of thing. It makes her laugh now, thinking about it. She was like a kid at summer camp.

She hasn’t seen her parents in a while now. They moved out to one of the new developments of retirement condos out in Waterfall years ago, and turned her room into a gym (was it ever really her room though, if she’s never even lived in it? Either way, it has a sign on the door that says “UNDYNE’S ROOM” with seashells for the Os, and inside there’s a stairmaster and a TV with a disturbing pile of Mettaton workout VHS’s next to it. For no earthly reason she can fathom, on every cover Mettaton is wearing a neon sweatband with a blonde mullet wig attached). 

Anyway, she’s okay with it all now, but back then it was strange not seeing them every day. Her dad always wrote back to the postcards, at least. 

_Love you sweetheart,_ he said, and Undyne rolled her eyes and stuffed them in the bottom of her trunk at the barracks, so nobody else would see.

 **iii. during**

Her first thought when she sees the flames slowly devouring her house (okay, not the first thought, that was _out out get the kid out get out_ , but her second thought) is that she just knows Sans has some marshmallows.

“He’s a bro,” she explains to the kid, and fishes (heh, she’ll have to write that one down for Sans) her cell out of her pocket to call him. The kid makes this concerned little face, all scrunched up, and points to the house.

“Huh?” Undyne says, only half paying attention as she listens to Sans’ machine picking up the call. Damn it. If she hadn’t let Papyrus run off to get a bucket of water…

The kid makes some sort of signal with their hand. Undyne has no idea what they’re trying to say, really, but she can guess the gist of it.

“Don’t worry about it,” Undyne tells them. “It doesn’t matter.”

And it doesn’t, is the thing. It’s sort of funny. While they stand watching, a beam caves in and explodes into cinders. The corner of Undyne’s mouth starts to twitch.

The kid makes another dismayed face, and signs something else. Their hands are quick and sure, practiced. They’d be good with a sword, probably. Undyne has a suspicion the kid’s mostly just talking to themselves, so she stays quiet.

The kid turns back to the fire, and holds up their hands towards the flames as if to warm them. Undyne swallows a laugh.

Machine again. Papyrus’ voice (because for some reason they thought it would be extremely funny to do each other’s voicemail messages) raps very ineptly at her to call Sans back later.

The kid is still warming their hands. There’s a small silence broken only by the hiss and spit of the flames. Undyne fumbles for something to say.

“I bet the other kids treat you like you’re stupid, right?” she blurts eventually, without quite knowing why. It’s out before she can stop it.

The kid looks at her, squinting a little as if deep in thought. They shrug very slowly, head cocked to one side.

“THIS SITUATION HAS WORSENED!” Papyrus’ voice announces suddenly from behind them, as if they can’t already see that. “YOUR HOUSE IS VERY ON FIRE.”

He’s carrying a little plastic cup of water, but more importantly, he’s also brought…

“I have marshmallows,” Sans says, raising a big plastic package in his fist. The kid’s face absolutely lights up at the sight of him, and they scuttle forward for a high-five. 

“Yo,” Sans says to them, and the kid’s face is pink with happiness.

“You’re a bro,” Undyne informs him, holding out her hands to catch the bag when Sans throws it.

The kid sits between Sans and Papyrus the whole time they’re roasting the marshmallows, clapping in delight when Sans and Papyrus show them how skeleton hands don’t feel the burning. Eventually, right when the flames are dying down and Undyne’s starting to feel sleepy, the kid shuffles on their butt over to her side. 

“What’s up, kid?” she asks.

They put their hand on the crook of her elbow, and nod very vigorously. With their head hung down like that, all that thick hair obscures their face. Undyne gets it. 

“Is this about – what I asked you earlier?” she says. The kid hangs their head further.

Undyne swallows against a tight throat, wishing she knew how to - wishing she was good with kids, like Sans or something.

“You’re not,” Undyne says, as firmly as she knows how (it’s pretty firm). “Or else you could not have defeated Me!”

She pauses, and then she does what she knows how to do best: she grins a huge grin, showing all her pointed teeth. 

The kid blinks at her for a second, taken aback, and then they… They grin right back, with all their inferior unpointy teeth. Their hand grips a little, reflexively, on the inside of Undyne’s elbow.

**iv.**

Moving in to Sans and Papyrus’ house goes fine – practically all her stuff is irreparably charred, so she mostly only has her weapons and armor to move, and a box of junk that she was keeping on her back porch. 

They’re done with the moving by lunchtime, so afterwards they lie around making snow angels in the yard. Undyne catches a few snowflakes on her tongue and thinks about what they might have for dinner.

Later, when she finally has to admit that she’s fully frozen, they head inside. Once she’s comfortable on the sofa she’s handed more things than she physically can hold – a mug of hot chocolate, and a scarf, and several blankets.

“I don’t even know why we have these,” Sans murmurs as he gives her another one. This blanket is bright pink and shakily hand-embroidered with several groups of squat skeletons. Skeleton-families, maybe. Looking at the stitchwork, Undyne can guess where they’ve come from (Papyrus stress-quilting while Sans is away on guard duty doesn’t really seem much of a stretch, conceptually) but not why they’re blankets, of all things, when skeletons don’t really feel the cold.

Undyne takes it and wraps it around her shoulders, and then Papyrus triumphantly throws open the door to the lounge, holding yet _another_ blanket, bright red this time.

“I FINALLY FOUND UNDYNE’S GUEST QUILT!” he announces delightedly. “I KNEW I’D PUT IT IN THE LOFT!”

Undyne takes it when it’s solemnly handed to her, and the boys sit beside her on the sofa, one on either side, like sentries. Once they’re asleep, she traces her fingers over the blanket again and again, watching snowflakes drift by the window.

|

It goes on that way, life with the boys. They effortlessly make a space for her, or maybe it’s not even that they need to make a space for her, maybe there was a space all along – a spare room with hooks on the walls to hang her weapons and armor, a bright red guest blanket with UNDYNE shakily stitched in one corner, her name squished in beside Papyrus’ on the mailbox outside. Maybe it was already there, an Undyne-shaped space.

Life in Snowdin settles into a routine. She comes down to breakfast every morning wrapped in her blanket to find Papyrus smiling at the stovetop, Sans lifting his mug of coffee to her in a little salute. She runs errands around town before she goes to train her guard, and everyone gets used to seeing her at the libarby and Grillby’s without her armor. 

On lazy Saturdays she hangs out in the yard with Papyrus and runs exercises while he tends to his new plants (he’s got some alpine flower cuttings in the mail from his Gardener’s Club, and is sort of terrifyingly tender towards the little shoots that are sprouting). A few of the local kids always gather to watch her throw her spear, and Papyrus provides a running commentary that is apparently supposed to be an impression of her (“TAKE **THAT** , PUNY GROUND! NO MERCY!”), and it’s kind of – it’s sort of nice, to not be living alone any more. It’s the Warrior’s Way and all, relying on yourself and being a lone wolf and stuff, but it feels good to be part of something, part of somewhere.

There’s just one problem with living with the boys, and she totally forgets about it until it’s too late, and one of the worst days of the year is already happening. 

“WOWIE! LOOK AT ALL THESE CARDS! BEING ABOUT TO JOIN THE ROYAL GUARD ANY DAY NOW FOR REAL MUST MAKE A SKELETON VERY POPULAR!” Papyrus exclaims from the front yard one morning, loud enough that Undyne can actually hear it from inside the house. She has a moment of confusion, and then she cuts her eyes over to the calendar hanging above the kitchen sink, and of course it’s –

Sans is just impassively sipping at his coffee with a carefully blank face, but Undyne knows when she’s being laughed at. She wraps her blanket more securely around her shoulders and shuffles out onto the porch to see Papyrus standing in front of their joint mailbox, goggling at the candy-colored explosion of cards and letters erupting out of the slot. He starts lifting handfuls of them and flicking through the envelopes, and then his expression gradually fades.

“OH, THIS ONE IS FOR YOU, UNDYNE… AND THIS ONE SAYS ‘TO THE FLAME-HAIRED GODDESS WHO HAS SPEARED MY HEART’, I GUESS THAT’S YOU... AND THIS ONE, TOO…”

Undyne sighs. If she’d realised what day today is, she could’ve crept out early this morning and thrown the cards away, or crossed out her name on a few of the envelopes and written Papyrus’ on instead. She finds Valentine’s Day kind of bewildering and ridiculous, and at least Papyrus would have enjoyed them. 

She hears Sans come out onto the porch and stand behind her, but when she turns to look at him, his gaze slides away from hers.

“AH, HERE’S MINE!” Papyrus says, waving a big envelope and sounding immediately cheered. “AND THIS ONE! ‘TO THE DASHING SKELETON, RIGHT MAILBOX’, THAT MUST BE ME! HEY, DO YOU GUYS THINK I’M REALLY DASHING? …IT’S THE SCARF, ISN’T IT?” 

Undyne gives Sans a more pointed look, the one she does when she’s intimidating or interrogating someone, but Sans seems completely unfazed, smiling mildly and still not looking at her.

“AND THIS ONE’S FOR ME! AND THIS ONE! AND THIS PINK ONE!” 

“I’ve got a special delivery for you,” Sans says to Undyne under the noise Papyrus is making, reaching into his jacket pocket. He pulls out a small card with just FOR HER written on the envelope, surrounded by a bunch of little rainbows and sparkles in bright marker like the sender couldn’t help themselves.

“ _HOW DO I LOVE THEE?_ ” Papyrus narrates from down in the yard, holding his latest card open. “ _LO, MORE THAN SPAGHETTI!_ …WOWIE!”

“Who is it from?” Undyne asks Sans, when she opens the card (carefully, without ripping the envelope) and finds it’s blank inside. The front has a sort of gory anatomical drawing of a heart; it’s the kind of Valentine card that Undyne actually appreciates.

“Sorry, they bribed me to keep quiet,” Sans says cheerily. 

Papyrus abandons his card-opening (and his narration of what he finds inside, which is kind of a bummer, because apparently Sans has a secret talent for both the limerick and making up ridiculous fake names) and trots up onto the porch, holding a big cream-coloured envelope out to Sans.

“FROM ME,” he says, looking fondly at his brother. “AND – AND SOMEONE ELSE.”

Undyne doesn’t need to see the inside to know who it’s from. She can tell from Sans’ expression that Papyrus must have tracked the kid down to wherever they’ve got to by now and had them sign it, too.

Sans tucks it very gently into the inside pocket of his jacket, and Undyne hopes that maybe, just maybe, things can change. This time.

**v.**

Undyne spends the next two weeks squinting suspiciously at every monster in Snowdin, trying to figure out who sent the FOR HER card, but pretty much gets nowhere. After Grillby gives her her third free milkshake inside of a week she eventually thinks it might be him, which is so awful a thought that she puts the whole thing out of her mind completely.

That’s why she totally doesn’t catch on at all when Alphys shows up on Sans’/Papyrus’/Undyne’s doorstep on the next particularly bright Saturday morning, and tells Undyne that she’s borrowed the River Person’s boat, and does Undyne wants to come with her somewhere?

Alphys is sweating like, a lot. She also smells really overwhelmingly of fancy citrusy perfume. All in all though, it’s not really weirder than she’s used to from Alphys, so she goes.

“I – er – I found this really nice spot a little further down the river… And I brought a picnic! It’s mostly just instant noodles and pocky, but…”

Alphys chatters during the whole walk to the boat, like she’s super nervous about something. Undyne has no idea what has her so wound up, until they set foot in the boat and it quickly becomes clear that neither of them knows how to… boat.

Also the boat seems to have its own ideas about how things should go, anyway.

“Does this boat have feet?!” Undyne yells, when the boat lifts itself up out of the water and begins to skip along the surface at a speed that is probably – no, definitely - dangerous. When she leans over the side she can see that yep, those are definitely paws. She gets a mouthful of water for her trouble, and spits it back out.

“Urp,” Alphys answers. Her eyes are screwed shut and her knuckles are white on the side of the boat. Undyne has less than zero idea why Alphys would ask her to come do something that Alphys is clearly terrified of, but here they are.

Eventually the ride slows a little, the wind stops whipping, and the feet start to do more of a doggy paddle. The river’s flow is lazy and peaceful, and a few flakes of snow drift down to find purchase on Undyne’s shoulders.

“Hey, Alphys,” she says. “You can look now, you big baby.”

“Ugh,” Alphys groans, opening her eyes. She still looks vaguely green. When Undyne grins encouragingly at her, Alphys takes a deep breath and musters a wobbly smile back.

They drift along in companionable silence for a few minutes, Undyne trailing her hand in the water. This wasn’t such a bad idea after all, really.

She almost asks Alphys for some help in drawing up a list of suspects for the FOR HER card, but that would mean admitting to someone else that it’s kind of preoccupying her, which would be so, so nerdy. So instead she opens her mouth to ask if they can bust into the picnic early, but she doesn’t get to finish the thought before she feels a very small, but very definite bite on her finger. 

Oh great.

“Alphys,” she says, trying to sound conversational even as she’s yanking her hand out of the water and dripping blood all over the bottom of the boat, “that perfume, does it have –“

“Oh my god,” Alphys says, clutching her face with both hands. “Is that… _blood_? Why are you bleeding so much? What’s going on??”

The boat starts to rock. It’s a very distinct kind of rocking; it seems almost exactly like there are a lot of fish piling up underneath the boat and nudging the hull. Oh God, the perfume definitely does have oranges in it.

“BOAT! SHORE! NOW!” Undyne yells while she scrambles about between the boat benches for an oar, or an engine pullcord, or something else useful hidden amongst the million boxes of fishing tackle the River Person keeps in this thing. She’s not at all confident that yelling is going to solve anything, but for once the boat actually listens. When they crash up against the side of the riverbank, Undyne leaps out and tugs the entire boat up onto the shore, blindly kicking out at several piranhas snapping at her heels. Alphys sits near the back of the boat the whole time, hyperventilating and being no help at all.

Once it’s safely ashore the boat meows disconsolately, which is weird because Undyne is pretty sure it’s a dog. Never mind.

Alphys doesn’t move for several long seconds. Meanwhile, Undyne sprawls on the ground to catch her breath, and thinks longingly of the pocky in the picnic basket. She at least deserves the bigger half of it after all this.

“This was supposed to be ROMANTIC,” Alphys wails finally, loudly enough that she actually seems to startle herself. In the beat of silence that follows, she claps a hand over her mouth and looks at Undyne with wide, horrified eyes.

Undyne is actually pretty positive now that the card isn’t from Grillby. Huh. That’s interesting.

“Was it, now?” Undyne asks. She’s grinning a little, she can’t help it. Alphys’ face is rapidly turning puce.

“I –“ she stutters, “I – I mean…”

Undyne gets a giddy little thrill at imagining just how much her mother’s lips would purse at the sight of Alphys, how Distasteful a topic that would be. It’s sort of perfect. She grins again, a little smaller, genuinely pleased.

“You _nerd_ ,” she says delightedly.

**vi. after**

Life is different up above, but it’s good. 

Like today, for example. There’s this thing up here called a Christmas, which is a lot like the Presents Under the Trees Festival in the underground, but way better, because up here Toriel cooks.

The house is full of the smell of pie, and turkey, and this banging boozy cake Toriel has made that has to be rationed out to Frisk. Undyne basically can’t move partly because she’s stuffed so full and partly because there are so many monsters in the house, all wearing party hats and chatting and carrying food. She also kind of doesn’t want to move because there is literally mistletoe hanging _everywhere_ , and so far she’s been caught under it with Toriel, Asgore, Frisk, some monster kid who actually fainted, Temmie, Catty… And Alphys has been nowhere to be found for the last hour, so it’s a total _waste_.

Well, okay, not a total waste. When Sans and his tiny shadow Frisk get caught under it, Sans picks Frisk right up and presses a big kiss against their cheek while Frisk wiggles with happiness. Toriel waves her arms around in dismay and says _wait, where’s my camera, where IS that darn thing, don’t move, can you both do that again?_

And Toriel and Frisk are individually two of Sans’ biggest weaknesses besides his brother, never mind _together_ , so he stands obediently still, waiting. And then they _do_ do it again, Sans good-natured about it even with a big old audience gathering, and it’s… Well, it’s _mushy as hell_ , naturally, but it’s also nice. Sweet. Anyway. She might be kind of drunk. That’s her story for the rest of the night, and she’s sticking to it. 

If Undyne has to peg someone as the mistletoe-hanger, she’d have to go with Mettaton, but he’s admitting nothing. Any time she gets near him he pirouettes off to regale everyone with another song at the piano, or starts a conga line.

That’s how she finds herself stuck next to Droopy Ghost at the punchbowl; they’re trapped by a sinuous conga line weaving around behind them, and 01 and 02 blushing at each other under the kitchen doorway mistletoe in front of them.

“Sad ghost,” Undyne says, because this is getting awkward and she’s in dire need of something to talk about, “did your weird brother hang all this mistletoe?”

“In our family counselling sessions we’re working on letting go of blame and accusations, and moving forward together as a unit,” they say. Which means yes.

“Which means yes,” Undyne surmises. Droopy Ghost somehow gives an incorporeal shrug, which is a weird thing to watch.

“He’s not interested in catching you under it,” they assure her. “You don’t have to worry.”

“I don’t worry about much, kid,” she says. “But thanks. Also… Family counselling? They have that kind of thing for monsters up here?”

“Well, it’s – it’s just Toriel,” Droopy Ghost admits. “But she’s really good.” 

Of course she is.

“NAPSTABLOOK! SHE’S JUST GROUCHY BECAUSE OF COURSE SHE WANTS TO KISS ME, BUT I AM TOO BUSY OFF BEING KISSED BY EVERYONE ELSE!” Papyrus says, breaking away from the conga line to sling an arm around Undyne’s neck from behind. “EVERYBODY WANTS TO KISS A SKELETON! SO SORRY, UNDYNE! YOU HAVE TO WAIT YOUR TURN!”

Undyne throws her own arm around his neck and noogies him until he’s begging for mercy, laughing fit to burst at Droopy Ghost’s horrified expression, like they're trying to decide whether they should intervene. As much as Papyrus struggles, she only lets him go when she notices Asgore signaling to her from the other side of the room, mouthing _a word?_ And yeah, that sounds better than hanging out with Droopy Ghost, plus Papyrus has a conga line to get back to anyway.

Asgore leads her to the dark space by the stairs in the deserted back hallway, which is a bit strange, but then he’s been the one handing her drinks every time she passes him, so he’s probably drunk too. She can roll with it.

“I wanted to know what you thought about something,” he says, and he sounds apologetic already, so she is definitely not going to like this.

He pulls a black box out of his pocket.

“It’s my Christmas gift for Toriel,” he says, opening it and showing her what’s inside. “Do you think it will – do you think she’ll like it?”

Like Undyne knows anything about this kind of thing, like she’s emotionally qualified for this crap. Like the question isn’t really _do you think Toriel will even accept it?_

She looks at his big stupid sad hopeful face and mumbles something like _I think it’ll work. Things can change_.

Look, she has to. The most emotionally qualified person in this house is Toriel, and she can’t exactly counsel her ex-husband on this for obvious reasons. Somebody has to step up. Anyway, right now is when Undyne knows she is definitely drunk, because no way would she ever say something so ridiculous otherwise.

And then god, Asgore looks like he’s going to cry or hug her or something, and just in time, her cell rings.

“I have to take this!” she says quickly, waving it in his face as proof, and darts away from the stairs to the front door.

|

“Hi, sweetheart,” the voice on the other end of the phone says once she’s outside. There is a snow family in Toriel’s front yard, with an amazingly accurate Frisk. The hair is made out of burnt spaghetti.

Undyne crosses her arms against the cold and looks up into the sky.

“Hi, dad,” she says. She can hear the smile in her father’s voice when he talks, asks how she is, says something about the new cat he and her mother got.

“You should come and see the new house,” he says. They have a new place up on the surface now. It’s got a pool. Her room is still a gym.

“Yeah, dad,” she says. The stars are so bright tonight, there’s barely a cloud in the sky. It still hits her sometimes how strange it is that she had never seen them before she came up here, and now they’re just a part of her life. Just another great thing about the world.

Yep. So drunk.

“I love you, Undyne,” her dad says.

Undyne can hear some sort of game starting inside the house, or maybe they’re handing round presents. There’s a lot of happy noise, and she can see a whole commotion through the window, even in the low light.

 _A quilt? Oh Papyrus, how did you know!_ someone exclaims, loud enough to be heard outside.

 _Wait, where’s Undyne?_ someone else demands. _She’s missing it!_

“Me too,” she tells the phone. 

The front door to Toriel’s house opens and then, finally, Alphys is there, framed in the light. Maybe she got stuck between a conga line and some mistletoe, too. It doesn’t matter now.

Her party hat is tilted precariously over one eye. Undyne feels something swell in her chest.

 _Coming?_ Alphys mouths, pointing inside.

“Dad, I have to go,” Undyne says. “My – they –“

She takes a breath.

“They need me, I guess.”


End file.
